-Funding for "Coastal Kingdom" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, which proudly supports this program.

Through the generosity of our members and donors, the ETV Endowment has funded educational and entertaining programming like "Coastal Kingdom" for more than 40 years.

♪ ♪ -Insects can really be frustrating to study 'cause there's just so many of them.

There are probably hundreds of species in this habitat right here.

Conservative estimates suggest that there are probably a million species of insects, and if we were to classify these the same way we do birds, mammals, fish, and other animals, there may be 10 times that many.

In this episode, we're gonna take a look at some of the common insect species that live right here in the Low Country.

♪ So, look at that little guy.

Okay, we got something big on.

There we go.

We've got the bird.

And there's already a chick in there.

♪ So, if you want to see insects, it doesn't get any better than this field.

This is early successional habitat, and there's wonderful grasses and all kinds of flowers blooming.

I've got my trusty net right here.

We're gonna walk around and just see how many different species we can catch.

But remember -- we're just gonna see a tiny fraction of what's in this field.

♪ So, the first thing we want to notice is what plants are in here.

Obviously, there's a lot growing in here, but there's some purple agalinis, false foxglove.

That's cool.

I've seen a lot of animals on that.

Also, here's some blue curls, which is a beautiful little plant.

Another thing that's really common in here is this horsemint.

And, boy, there is a lot of it in here.

And a lot of butterflies and a lot of insects in general love this stuff.

There's a reason these insects are here -- because a lot of their food plants and, more importantly for some of these, the nectaring plants are here.

You can see there's butterflies nectaring on these flowers.

And, boy, look at the diversity of butterflies.

In fact, here's one right here.

And so I caught it.

I'll be really careful with it.

But this is one of the most common butterflies we have.

And I'm gonna very carefully hold it by the bottom wings, and we'll get a look at this.

And this is one called a Gulf fritillary.

And it's one of the brush-foot butterflies.

And, boy, they are beautiful.

And sometimes people want to call this a monarch, but monarchs are quite different.

They have very heavy sort of black veins that go across the wings.

And the underside of the wing looks very different.

Beautiful.

So, butterflies belong to that order Lepidoptera, which is all the moths and the butterflies.

And it, roughly translated, means "scale wing."

So, Lepidoptera means "scale wing."

And they have little tiny scales on the surface of their wings.

But I'll tell you one of the coolest things about this species is the larvae.

And so we're gonna go see if we can find some larvae.

Let's let this little guy go.

♪ So, I moved over to kind of the other side of the field, and, man, it was hard to find this plant.

And I think I know why.

If you look right here, you can see something's been feeding on this.

This is passion vine.

And passion vine is the host plant for this caterpillar right here.

That's the Gulf fritillary larva.

And, man, they look kind of prickly, like they would hurt you, but they're completely harmless.

But look at those spines.

They look dangerous for sure.

Anyway, but they like this passion vine.

That's what they feed on.

There's a bunch of them on here.

One, two, three.

So, there's four.

So, there's several of them.

And if I look -- Yeah, I look right over here, and there's actually a couple of adults flying around.

And so they would lay their eggs on this passion vine and the eggs would hatch into little caterpillars and eventually they'd get this big, where they're big enough to pupate and form a chrysalis.

And I assume that's what this one will do very shortly.

Anyway, gotta have that plant, and you got to have good habitat for these butterflies.

♪ You know, one of the things I love about a field like this is the noise.

I mean, there's this just undercurrent of buzzing.

And you know what?

A loud, buzzing field is a healthy field because there's just tons of insects, a lot of hymenopterans, you know, bees and wasps that are making that buzzing noise.

And that's a good sign.

[ Insects buzzing ] Okay, I thought I saw one of the butterflies here that I'm interested in.

I think -- I got it.

Good.

So, this -- You know, I haven't -- This is the first one of these, the butterfly I've seen.

But, man, have I seen a lot of larvae around.

Get a look at this one.

This one looks a little roughed up.

I think it's been flying for a long time.

But this is a buckeye butterfly.

Really cool.

Look at those neat eyespots.

And those eyespots are probably really good protection from a variety of predators.

You think about it.

Eyespots might attract attention for a predator to the wing instead of to the head.

Really, really common one.

But that false foxglove that we have in here -- the larvae love it.

So I'm sure that this is one that probably the caterpillar fed on that false foxglove and that's why this animal started to fly from here.

So, I'm gonna let this one go, too.

Here we go.

Okay, let's go see if we can find one of the of the caterpillars.

♪ So, here is that caterpillar, and it's a really neat one.

You know, a lot of these caterpillars look like they have stinging spines on them, but this one does not.

In fact, you can pick it up really easily, very carefully... ♪ ...and get a good look at it.

But this -- this is a caterpillar that is gonna almost always be -- this time of year, be on that false foxglove, especially where it's abundant like this.

And I'll bet you -- Boy, there are several in here.

It's one of those things that, until you see one, you don't realize just how many are here.

♪ Here's another species of butterfly.

This is one called a cloudless sulphur.

♪ Beautiful butterfly.

This is one that we see even in much cooler weather.

Boy, I never get tired of seeing these.

They're so pretty.

And this is one that looks a lot like a leaf.

And you can see how, if it was sitting in some broad leaves, it would blend in really, really well.

Cloudless sulphur.

And there's a bunch of sulphurs -- sleepy orange and cloudless sulphur, in the white butterflies are all in the same family.

The larvae of this is bright green, so it's really hard to see, and it's usually going to be on something in the pea family.

So, I don't see any of that plant around here.

♪ ♪ Okay.

Here.

This is one of our prettiest butterflies.

This is one called -- looks like a spicebush swallowtail.

Looks like this one's actually maybe -- Oh, wow!

It's missing a whole bit of the tail.

So, obviously, a bird or another predator just kind of clipped that off.

And this one's been flying for a while, but... Spicebush swallowtail.

Look at the back of the wing on this one.

Now, this is one -- I'll bet if we look around, we can find a larva of one of these too.

Because I've seen some sassafras around.

And that's the food plant for this species.

And although this one -- obviously, it's been through the wars, but I think it's just fine.

There it goes.

So, we're on the edge of the field.

And I actually noticed this when I came up.

I noticed that there's some sassafras here.

And then I saw this.

And you can see the leaf has been cut very neatly and folded over.

And that means it's probably a spicebush caterpillar.

So what we're going to have to do is just very carefully open this folded leaf up.

And sure enough -- boy, it is tiny.

Boy, that's a little one!

So this is an egg that hatched probably not too long ago and hatched into this little caterpillar.

But this is going to grow into a caterpillar that gets about this long, and it's got eyespots.

It looks almost like a lizard or a snake.

♪ Guys, one of the things to look out for -- Now, this is not an insect.

This is a tick.

It's more closely related to mites.

But you do have to be careful.

When you're in a field like this, you're going to pick up some ticks, and a lot of ticks can carry some pretty nasty diseases.

So anytime you do stuff like this, you want to get in, take a shower, and make sure you don't have any ticks on you.

One of the great things about ticks is, if you get them off quickly, you generally don't get a disease from them, so you want to get them off as quickly as possible.

So I'm going to get rid of this one.

Okay.

Over here on this horsemint is a pretty good-sized bee.

Looks like it's probably... a carpenter bee.

Actually I got two, which makes it kind of interesting.

[ Chuckles ] See if I can get this in the jar.

I'm gonna let one of these go.

See if I can...

They're -- one's out.

Boy, it's not happy.

Yeah.

Carpenter bee.

So, what I generally go by -- if you see one of these big bees with a fuzzy body, it's probably a bumblebee.

But if it has a real shiny body like this, it's probably a carpenter bee.

And carpenter bees get that name because they dig holes in wood, sometimes in fences or siding of a house, and so they can be a little bit pest-y, but they're wonderful pollinators.

And when they gather pollen, they transfer it over to other flowers and help to pollinate them.

So they're really, really important.

Now, this is a native species, and we got to have these around.

The sting on the females is pretty impressive, but certainly not dangerous.

♪ [ Bee buzzing ] There we go.

♪ ♪ Here's another swallowtail, and, boy, this is much bigger.

Looks like a Palamedes swallowtail.

Boy, look at that.

Beautiful!

Boy, these swallowtails are amazing.

See the stripes on the abdomen there, and the characteristic swallow tails.

Now, the Palamedes likes redbay.

Anyway, boy, it's so neat to -- There's another one that just flew by.

Boy, it's hard to concentrate on filming because there's a variety of butterfly species flying around us.

This is -- This is impressive, just the incredible diversity of insects that are here.

♪ So, there's so much more here than we're seeing.

So, some of this stuff we're seeing flying around, and there's a ton of activity here, but there's a lot of stuff that we don't see because it's not flying and it's down in the grass.

So one of the things I like to do is take a net like this and then just kind of do this and see what's in here.

Okay, let's see what's -- let's look down inside the net and see what's in here.

Well, one mad bee.

[ Chuckles ] You can see him right here.

And there is tons of stuff in here.

Green lynx spider.

Look right here.

Gosh, a beautiful spider, and that's one -- Can you imagine the cryptic coloration or camouflage on that animal?

They blend in just beautifully with the vegetation they live in.

Oh, another spider.

Another really interesting spider.

Look -- and one of the inchworms.

Geomitridae is the family, and you can see how it's moving.

We all know how an inchworm moves.

It is just hard to appreciate how many living things are in a field like this.

There's all this stuff to eat, there's all this sunshine.

And not only are there insects, but there's a variety of predators -- things like spiders, and even green anoles and other lizards.

It's just really neat stuff.

♪ If you look right here, I just saw the back of it.

But look at this creature.

Saltmarsh caterpillar.

Now, these are incredibly variable, but I feel sure that's what this is.

And this turns into kind of a nondescript moth.

But the caterpillar is fabulous.

This is -- you know, looks similar to the woolly bears, but saltmarsh caterpillar.

This looks like it would have those stinging hairs.

But as far as I know, it doesn't.

I haven't...

Doesn't feel like it stings.

[ Chuckles ] But some caterpillars do, so you have to be a little bit careful with certain species, because they have kind of stinging, urticating hairs, they're called, and that's really uncomfortable for sure.

So, this animal is just feeding as much as it can.

And then it's going to pupate and form really a kind of ordinary-looking moth.

Neat creature.

Neat to see out here.

♪ Look at the grasshoppers in here, guys!

I mean, they're... Every time I take a step.

[ Insects chittering ] Okay, surely -- okay.

What I'm going to try is moving quickly and just see how many I can flush, and then we'll try and catch one.

♪ [ Laughs ] There's one right there.

I think I got him.

I did!

Okay, here's what I was after.

This is one of the bigger grasshoppers we have around here.

And this is the American bird grasshopper.

And you see, it's kind of spitting out some foul -- kind of foul-smelling fluid.

But it doesn't look good.

But the grasshopper's fine.

But look at that gorgeous pattern!

So, that gorgeous pattern that looks bright here helps it to blend in beautifully in this field with, you know, dried-up vegetation and stuff like that.

But this is quite an athlete.

This is an animal that can jump incredible distances, and it's a really good flyer, too.

And it gets the name bird grasshopper because when you scare one of these things, it takes off.

It looks like a little bird flying off.

Most insects are going to have two pairs of wings, and most of them can fly, at least a certain stage of their lives.

But these also have just tremendously strong back legs for jumping.

But these are great fliers.

And let me let me show you what I mean.

♪ ♪ Guys, here's -- this is a great swallowtail right here, if I can catch it.

This is the -- this is the biggest swallowtail we have.

I got it.

Man, these are impressive.

This is, I think, one of the most beautiful butterflies we have in the United States.

And I'm going to be really, really delicate holding it.

But this is one called a giant swallowtail.

Oh, look at that beautiful butterfly.

You can see the swallow tails.

It's one called the giant swallowtail because it's such a big animal compared to some of the others.

This looks like it recently emerged.

In fact, I see another one flying right over here.

But if we look at the back of the wing here... Look at this beautiful wing.

So, this is one that has one of the neatest caterpillars of all.

And I have a pretty good idea where we can find some of those caterpillars of the giant swallowtail.

♪ Okay, so we're at a new spot, and the reason we're here is because of this beautiful little butterfly right here.

In fact, it's sitting on the host plant.

So, this is toothache tree.

Toothache tree's in the citrus family.

And if you want to find a giant swallowtail caterpillar, then you're going to have to look on a citrus.

Either an orange tree or lime tree or lemon tree or something like that.

Or, around here in the Low Country, toothache tree.

See if I can get a slightly better look at this one.

I'm sure it's going to fly off.

But you can see, what an elegant butterfly.

One of our biggest butterflies.

Tremendous wingspan.

And a very delicate flyer.

But the most exciting part is the larvae, and they are really terrific.

So I thought we'd look around on some of these toothache trees and see if we can find some.

A lot of times, for some reason, especially on, you know, moderately cool days, they tend to be up on top.

And here's one right here.

There's actually another one right here.

But these are remarkably cryptic.

And let's start with this little one right here.

You have to be careful of the spines on this plant.

But look at that!

Boy, you'd never know that wasn't some sort of bird droppings.

And that's -- this is so cryptic, it looks so much like bird droppings that a lot of animals would probably just dismiss it as nothing to eat.

Man, it's just amazing.

It looks almost like it's wet, like it's even fresh bird droppings.

But what eats these is wasps.

So, some of the wasps will fly around, they'll search the plants, they'll look for them.

and they basically just cut them up and take them back and, you know, eat them themselves and feed them to their paper wasp colony or whatever.

Just remarkable animals.

♪ So, one of my favorite things about this species and a lot of the swallowtails is that if you just touch them very lightly behind the head, the osmeterium pops out and they look almost like a snake tongue or little tentacles that stick out, and they're covered with a foul-smelling liquid, and that deters from predators.

It may just scare them off, startle them, or maybe it's just that they -- they smell really bad.

But it's like this caterpillar has a lot of neat tricks for protecting itself.

♪ So, the other thing I've noticed -- let me see if I can find one -- is there seem to be [Chuckling] green anoles -- Here's one right here.

Boy, I didn't have to look long.

He just jumped down.

And so there are green anoles on just about every one of these branches.

And I'll bet they're eating caterpillars.

But, also, maybe they receive some sort of protection from these spines.

And maybe certain predators that eat the green anoles leave them alone because of these spines.

Yeah, hard to know for sure, but there's a lot going on in here.

Most of our insect species are considered extremely beneficial, and it's hard to imagine a group that's more important than our pollinators.

So today we get to get out in the field with Dr. Dwight Williams.

Dwight, thank you so much for joining us today.

This is going to be great.

-Yeah.

Thanks for inviting me out.

Good day to find some pollinating insects.

-Yeah.

So, I guess the first thing to talk about is, you know, we all use the term "pollinators."

What do we really mean by that?

-Pollinators are really any animal -- mostly insects, but any animal that transfers pollen between flowering plants -- increases genetic diversity of the plants, increases seed and fruit production, and of course, it also benefits the insects that eat the nectar and pollen.

-So, Dwight, this is pretty good insect habitat, right?

-Definitely, very good.

-So I think one of the important things for people to realize is just the importance of early successional habitats like this.

-Right.

-Lots of sunshine, lots of grasses here.

But what about pollinators?

What are we looking for today for -- to look for pollinators?

-Looks like a good diversity of plants out here, but I don't see many flowers, so we probably need to go and look for someplace with some active flowering going on, something that's going to bring in those pollinating insects.

-So -- And mostly what we're looking at today are native species of plants.

-Right.

-I mean, they're attracted to exotics, as well, but probably native species are... -Yeah.

It kind of makes sense that if these insects evolved with these plants, these plants are probably going to fit their nutritional needs better than something that's introduced.

-Yeah.

All right, well, let's get out in the field and see what we can see.

-Sounds good.

Let's go.

♪ There's a honeybee.

-I also noticed some big dragonflies flying around.

So those would be predators feeding on some of the stuff that we're looking for.

-Right.

They'd be too glad to eat some of these small butterflies.

♪ Let's see if we got anybody here.

Oh, we got the leaf-footed bug.

It's not an active pollinator, but it is something out here that's going to be taking sap from the plants.

-Yeah.

And obviously, you can see where it gets the name because it looks like it really does have a leaf on the back foot, doesn't it?

-Tony, you see this webbing up on top of this plant right here?

If you look closely, you see a green lynx spider.

-Oh, yeah.

Sure enough.

Boy, they're beautiful.

-Another predator taking advantage of the pollinator abundance.

♪ -Hey, Dwight, here's something kind of interesting.

-Oh, yeah, that's one of the halictid bees.

-So it's a sweat bee?

-Yeah, it's one of the ones we call sweat bees.

This is one of the larger species here.

-And so it's got -- is this pollen on it that it's collected?

-Right.

They have little specialized hairs on their back legs where they can pack the pollen.

♪ -Dwight, see what you think -- see what you think that is.

-Oh, yeah, you can tell by the fuzzy body -- that's one of the bumblebees.

I think that's the common eastern species.

-Okay.

And this would be a big pollinator, right?

-Right, right.

And this is one of the worker bees here.

♪ -So, Dwight, what do you have?

I see -- Oh, cool.

-Yeah, I Think I've got one of the thynnid wasps.

There you go.

-[ Chuckling ] That's kind of a risky maneuver right there.

-I'm not too worried about this -- this guy.

-So, is this -- So this is one that you're going to see on a variety of, you know, whatever's blooming at the time.

-Right, out collecting nectar to get some carbohydrates for a little energy.

♪ Got one.

-Did you?

-Yeah.

-Good.

I missed.

-It looks like a long-tailed skipper.

And skippers are related to butterflies.

They're day fliers.

They come to flowers, collect nectar.

-Yeah.

And the tails are for predator avoidance, right?

-Right, right.

It kind of gives the idea of a false head here.

-Yeah.

-So the predator might attack the tail rather than the head.

Oh, you see something?

-Yep.

Got something good here.

Pretty, anyway.

This is -- This is a gorgeous little animal.

-And it's a bella moth, isn't it?

-Yeah, ornate bella moth, one of the day-flying moths.

-Oh, gorgeous.

-Beautiful.

Beautiful colors.

-Gorgeous little animal.

-Yeah, it feeds on species of Crotalaria.

-Boy, that's -- that's gorgeous, isn't it?

-Wow, it's beautiful.

-So, Dwight, we've seen lots of really cool stuff today, but what can the average person do to kind of help protect pollinators?

-There's some pretty easy things you can do.

For one thing, you can severely limit the pesticide usage that -- in your yard.

You can let the leaves that fall from your trees stay on the ground.

-And not rake them up and burn them or something like that?

-Don't rake them up and burn them or put them on the curb.

But you -- also, it's very important to think about reducing the size of your lawn and perhaps replacing sections of your lawn with gardens with native plants.

-And because those native species are good not just for pollinators, but insects in general and other -- other animals.

-Right.

And -- And with butterflies, you want to be sure and plant nectar plants, as well as the host plants for the caterpillars.

-And, you know, the other thing is it's just -- it's not like your yard is going to not be as good -- it's going to be better.

Well, this has been a lot of fun.

I sure appreciate you spending the day with us and... -It's been a good day out.

-...going out and catching bugs.

-Thank you.

-So, are you ready to let this one go?

-Yeah.

Let this one fly.

-I'm gonna let you do the honors.

-Thanks.

-That is a beautiful little insect.

-It is very pretty.

-There you go.

[ Chuckles ] ♪ Well, if you look right here, this is -- this is where I would expect to see one of these, too.

It's -- Talk about cryptic.

I mean, this is an animal that blends in beautifully.

This is the perfect camouflage.

So, this looks -- it's a mantis for sure.

And it looks like one of the slender mantises.

It's like the whole animal has been sort of stretched out, compared to some of the others.

But look at these wonderful raptorial front legs.

So, they keep these kind of tucked.

Any time you see an animal with the -- that lives on vertical vegetation like this, you're going to see kind of lines down the body.

Look, even the antennae can be held in a vertical position to help with the cryptic coloration.

Also, that's why it's green with a little bit of brown in it.

You know, insects really are an incredibly diverse group of animals.

Look at what we've seen just in this field.

And this is the tiniest fraction of what's here.

No one can ever learn all the species of insects that they encounter.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing, right?

You could spend your whole life studying insects and out in the field, and every day, you'd have a new and exciting discovery.

Thanks for joining us on "Coastal Kingdom."

♪ ♪ ♪ -Funding for "Coastal Kingdom" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, which proudly supports this program.

Through the generosity of our members and donors, the ETV Endowment has funded educational and entertaining programming like "Coastal Kingdom" for more than 40 years.